Ground This Airport: FAA should spend no more for Hastings airstrip

David Lassman/The Post-Standard LIGHTS LINE the runway of Syracuse Suburban Airport in Hastings, Oswego County. It was improved with $3 million from the Federal Aviation Administration. Now the bank is foreclosing and the owners are behind on their taxes.

When was the last time Syracuse Hancock International Airport was so congested, planes had to be diverted to another airport? We can’t think of one, either. Hancock operates at only 50 percent capacity.

So why is the Federal Aviation Administration clinging to troubled plans for a “reliever” airport in Hastings, Oswego County?

Syracuse Suburban Airport, as the half-mile airstrip is known, was the brainchild of Kenneth M. Delpha, of Syracuse, Kenneth V. Coon Jr., of Cato, and David E. Pizio, of Jamesville.

The FAA is already into the project to the tune of $3 million — money from taxes it collects on tickets and fuel for passengers and air freight. Another $4.1 million in funding is targeted for the airport in the FAA’s five-year plan for airport development.

The agency funds “reliever” airports to take the pressure off hubs and reduce flight delays — a strategy that makes eminent sense in places like Chicago or the New York metropolitan area, but defies logic here. If relief is ever needed — say, if there’s an emergency at Hancock that prevents planes from landing — the Oswego County Airport in Volney is just minutes away by air from Hastings.

To the FAA’s credit, it cut off the funding spigot to Syracuse Suburban Airport when it learned the airport’s developers were having financial difficulties.

The FAA also is looking into the questionable sale of three parcels of land near the Hastings airfield. A company controlled by the airport’s developers “flipped” the land to themselves for $146,000 more than they paid for it, Tobin reported. “At the time the FAA issued the grant to the airport sponsor, the agency did not know that the airport was buying land from an entity that was also owned by the same people,” agency spokeswoman Arlene Salac said.

Why not? What kind of due diligence did the FAA perform before entering into its relationship with Syracuse Suburban Airport?

The FAA’s newfound skepticism is absent from its other actions. The agency is fighting efforts by the bank that foreclosed on the property to sell the land for another use. It also went to bat for Syracuse Suburban Airport when the town of Hastings refused a building permit, saying the property had been rezoned. The FAA was unfazed when Sen. Charles Schumer changed his mind about the airstrip and urged the agency to cut off funding.

By trying to protect its investment in Syracuse Suburban Airport, the FAA risks spending even more public money on a highly questionable venture. It’s going to take another huge infusion of money to make a serviceable airport out of a half-mile strip of asphalt. Where’s the fuel station? Hangars? Passenger facilities?